Reviews four uses for norm-referenced tests of reading comprehension. Concludes that three of the uses are actually misuses and that the only appropriate use is for predicting future student performance. (FL)

Asserts that failure to consider carefully the purposes and uses to which standardized tests are put can place barriers in the way of equal educational opportunities for minority students. Proposes six precautions for ensuring that standardized tests can be used without endangering equal educational opportunities. (PGD)

The need for reliable, valid, and economical preschool screening measures to identify psychoeducational problems as mandated by P.L. 94-142 (the Education for All Handicapped Child Act) led to the development of the Minneapolis Preschool Screening Instrument (MPSI). (SW)

Three important issues related to the testing debate, particularly in the context of college and professional school admissions, are reviewed and evaluated. (Author/AL)

Using criterion-referenced test item data collected in an empirical study, differences in item selection between Cox and Vargas' pretest-posttest validity index and a latent trait approach (evaluation of the item information function for the mastery score) are analyzed. (Author/GK)

Reports on the development and testing of the Revision and Editing Test. Presents the test and its answer key in an appendix. (RL)

Details the steps followed in the development of the Basic Skills Word List. (FL)

Argues that giving students a reading test that is above or below their levels of achievement will yield inaccurate information. (FL)

Finds the revised Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test an improvement over the original edition. (AEA)

Studied effects of anxiety and sex on neuropsychological test performance. Right-handed subjects responded to the Finger Tapping (FT), Form Board (FB), and State-Trait Anxiety tests. Females performed significantly slower on the FT than males, and for females, trait anxiety was negatively correlated with FT performance and positively correlated…

Testing procedures developed on younger groups are often inadequate when testing the elderly. Special tests and administration techniques that increase the likelihood that elderly examinees will do their best are described. Psychological examiners must receive special training in testing to do a credible job with the elderly. (Author/BEF)

The author examines four testing alternatives for minority group children who consistently do poorly on standardized tests: off-grade-level testing; not testing minority children at all; changing to an easier test; and criterion-referenced testing. He favors the last alternative. (SJL)

The nature of the testing situations should be carefully considered when interpreting the correlation between a personality test and a measure of social desirability and interpreting the actual scores on personality measures which seem strongly susceptible to the influence of social desirability. (Author)

Language assessment is reviewed as a technology which could become more effective for classroom use through school-based development and greater use of alternatives to standardized testing. (Author)

Three levels of a mathematics computation test were equated using the Rasch model. Sixth, seventh, and eighth graders were administered different levels of the test. Lack of consistency among equatings suggested that the Rasch model did not produce a satisfactory vertical equating of this computation test. (Author/RD)